St. Cloud, MN Car Accident Lawyers

St. Cloud’s Premier Car Accident Attorneys

Every state has its laws and processes regarding auto accidents. Therefore, it is important to familiarize oneself with your state’s corresponding processes and laws to ensure that you successfully file an auto accident claim and understand the potential compensations and damages that warrant compensation after an auto accident.

Importance of Filling An Auto Accident Claim

Filing an auto accident claim is vital to ensure that any costs associated with the accident are covered. Filing a claim may assist in paying for things like medical expenses, car repairs, time away from work, and more, depending on the facts of the accident. Filing a claim is also crucial for the sake of prospective legal protection. It’s in your best interest to act quickly following an accident and submit a claim.

Filing a claim can give victims of accidents the peace of mind that comes from knowing their rights will be upheld. Moreover, a claim might aid in making the other motorist responsible for their conduct and the costs related to the collision.A St. Cloud car accident attorney will be able to provide you with the legal advice and guidance you need to successfully navigate through the complex legal process of a car accident case.

Steps to File an Accident Claim

After an accident, you should gather the insurance information from the other driver and document the incident. It is also recommended that you document your perceptions of the accident’s events as best since this may come in handy when submitting a claim.

Contact your Agent

Call your insurance agent as soon as possible if the damage is substantial enough and you intend to file a claim. Next, you’ll want to talk to the other drivers involved to find out what happened. You will need the other driver’s name, contact details, home or office address, registration plate number, insurance card number, and the vehicle’s manufacturing year, model, and license plate numbers.

Contact the police

Having a police report to back up your claim is highly recommended. You should call the police as soon as possible to improve your chances of getting your damages covered by insurance. Some insurance companies demand a police report before paying for a claim. Ensure to get numerous copies of your report when requesting it from the authorities.

Obtain Extra Copies of the Accident Claim Form

You should give one copy of the vehicle accident claim form to the police, one to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), and one to your insurance company. It is also important to have a St Cloud car accident attorney to guide you through the claim process, especially if the accident was due to a distracted, uninsured, or drunk driver in Minnesota.

Get in Touch with a Claims Adjuster

A claims adjuster is an insurance company employee who works to investigate a claim, confirm the information the policyholder has submitted, and ultimately resolve the claim. They will explain everything to you, inspect the automobile, and evaluate the scenario to determine how much money you’ll get back. However, each provider’s claim form is different, and the claims adjuster can answer any questions you may have about how to fill it out in your specific situation.

Potential Compensation

Medical Costs

Your hospital bills, physical therapy sessions, and medical prescriptions should all be covered by the insurance company after an accident. You may be entitled to compensation for your present and future medical expenses if continuous medical attention is needed and any repairs you need to make to your home or vehicle due to the accident.

Income Loss

You will be compensated for the time you lost from work while recovering and the potential income you will never earn again. For instance, if an accident causes nerve damage in a casual laborer’s hands, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to continue his career. He could file a claim for lost future earnings if he was fired and had to choose a lower-paying job. An experienced auto accident lawyer in St Cloud knows how to navigate the legal landscape and will be able to assist you in obtaining the maximum financial compensation for your losses.

Pain and Suffering

This term is commonly used to describe an injured person’s mental and physical distress after an incident.

Punitive Damages

In cases involving car crashes, punitive damages are uncommon. For cases of extreme recklessness on the driver’s part, these types of damages may be granted. For instance, you could seek punitive damages from a drunk driver to deter future reckless behavior.

Types of Damages That an Accident Claim Can Award

Monetary or Other Special Damages

Damages of this sort are monetary compensation given to the aggrieved party for any damages they incur due to the defendant’s wrongdoing. They are actual costs incurred by the plaintiff and can be proven by tallying up their monetary losses. There must be concrete evidence of these costs or losses. Such damages include future and past medical costs, the cost to repair or replace the property, and the loss of indispensable items.

Non-Monetary or General Damages

These costs are an inevitable consequence resulting from the defendant’s wrongdoing, as the plaintiff’s harm is mainly a result of the defendant’s conduct or activities. However, it is not uncommon for a plaintiff to be awarded full compensation for general damages despite the defendant’s ability to foresee the gravity of the harm or injury.

Disfigurement, decreased quality of life, mental anguish, physical suffering, and physical impairment are all general damages that may be awarded in a personal injury case, even though each case will present itself differently. However, having an auto accident lawyer in St. Cloud is important, as they are ranked among the best in Minnesota.

Minnesota Car Accident Law

Care Obligation

All motorists in Minnesota must use caution and safety features in their vehicles to prevent accidents. In other words, you must drive in a way that a fair-minded person would.

No-fault state

Minnesota is known as a “no-fault” state. This means that regardless of who was at fault for the accident, injured drivers and passengers generally need to turn to their personal-injury protection car insurance coverage to recover damages for medical expenses, lost wages, and similar costs. Assuming that the other driver was at fault, claiming from the other driver’s insurance provider is only necessary if your damages exceed your policy’s maximum.

Comparative Negligence

This rule is in effect in Minnesota per Section 604.01 of the Minnesota Statutes. You can still file a lawsuit to seek compensation for damages sustained in a car crash, given that your degree of fault is less than that of the individual against whom recovery is sought. However, you will receive a proportionally smaller award. You cannot be more at fault than the person you are suing.

Insurance claims adjusters in Minnesota are required to follow the comparative negligence rule, and so are Minnesota courts if your car accident case goes to trial. Remember that there is no empirical approach for assigning blame, so settling on who is at fault will depend on your abilities in negotiations with the claims adjuster or court.

Minnesota Car Crash Statistics

There were more than 36,000 car accidents reported in Minnesota in 2021, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Two hundred seventy-three fatalities were recorded in 2021, an increase of 5.5% over the previous year.

When looking at the causes of fatal car accidents, the report showed that speeding was the primary factor in 33.5% of all cases. Another 17.2% of fatal crashes were caused by distracted drivers while driving, and impaired drivers caused 16.2%.

Even though most car accidents in Minnesota are minor, the number of serious and fatal ones has increased. There were 21 deaths and 500 major injuries from car crashes in the state in 2021, an increase of 4.2% over the same period in 2020.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety reported 106,653 auto accidents that year, a 1.3 percent drop from 2019’s total of 108,048 crashes. There were 557 fatalities and 34,186 injuries from the 106,653 collisions. There were 591 fatalities in 2018, a drop of 5.4%, and 34,985 injuries, a decrease of 2.6%, in 2019.

Minnesota has witnessed a significant decrease in traffic fatalities over the past few decades. Increased road safety can be attributed to several causes, including better outreach and education, better legislation and stricter enforcement, better engineering, and better emergency trauma treatment. These measures are a part of the state’s Toward Zero Deaths (TZD) program, an interdisciplinary attempt to solve traffic problems on a micro level.

Conclusion

Familiarizing yourself with the information mentioned above is paramount in understanding Minnesota’s auto accident compensation process without the possibility of being left out due to a lack of adequate knowledge. To avoid confusion about why you may not qualify, you should better understand the damages that warrant compensation and those that do not.